Agriculture Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

That's perfect, so we're on the right page. All right.

My question—

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

It comes at the end of the process. It's five years, so it comes to these numbers after five years.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay. Is there, right now and working into the future, a strategy in place, a vision of how we can regain some of the markets in other countries for our producers, going forward?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

This is why we want to work with the sector on market development. They are asking us to use part of the money we have for compensation on market development. More widely, we are working a lot in collaboration with Minister Ng, the Minister of International Trade, to diversify our markets and to open up new markets. This is something that is always on our radar. We want to increase our exports to $75 billion by 2025, so we're taking every opportunity.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Yes, exactly, and I don't think that work can start too soon. That's why the question was whether that development is in progress, working with our chicken and turkey and broiler and dairy producers? Where do you think the next opportunities to grow that market development would be?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

When we talk about the milk, eggs and chickens under supply management, they are not sectors that are mainly oriented on export. It's the idea behind supply management. Nevertheless, we are doing research and working on innovation to see if we can find new markets for products that we have in surplus after our domestic consumption.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you.

I'll just end with the fact that if you keep giving up market shares, there's less and less opportunity for our producers to make money, so we have to keep compensating them.

I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Epp.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'll pick up on your last point. Just to clarify, then, the marketing initiatives contemplated are purely domestically focused. Is that correct?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

This is a discussion we have to have with the industry.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Okay. I guess what's concerning, then, is a recent CTV report. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, who actually testified here at committee several weeks ago, was quoted estimating that food costs are rising 3% to 5% this year. He specifically referenced chicken, potentially going up 7%.

I'm going to go back to my comments earlier about the impact of the carbon tax on this sector, roughly $14,000 a year per average producer. I mean, the sector works with suppliers of those costs being rolled into a cost-of-production formula. No doubt some of that rise in the cost-of-production formula is being driven by feed costs, but they're incurring another $20 million in carbon tax just on the regulated rail costs this year, and that's rising in two years to $33 million.

Can you comment on your estimation of the effects of rising food costs driven by the carbon tax, either directly to the producers or on the feed they're buying?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

What we are doing to help people face the increase in the cost of food is normally through different social programs like the Canada child benefit, but during COVID, we realized that more families were facing challenges to feed their families. This is why we have invested, up to now, $200 million to support food banks, $50 million to buy surpluses from our farmers and processors to distribute them, and another $25 million for northern communities. This is the way we're helping Canadians facing increases in prices.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Epp. Sorry, we're out of time.

Mr. Blois, I understand you'll be splitting your time with Mr. Louis.

Go ahead, Mr. Blois, for five minutes.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The point that I wanted to make.... Mr. Epp, of course, is the member of Parliament for Leamington, and he went a little way in terms of correcting himself. He talked about the price on pollution, and basically created a number to suggest that there would be about 14,000 dollars' worth of compensation to producers. We know that this money is not necessarily going to producers, but then he said that any increases under a price on pollution would offset that. He did correct himself by saying that the cost of production study is levied, such that this would not impact farmers. I wanted to put that on the record. Minister, if you want to comment, you can.

Also, Mr. Steinley mentioned supply management. He was talking about export markets. I don't know if he knows that supply management is mostly domestic policy, but then he said that we shouldn't be giving this market access away. I know he wasn't part of the government that did that under CETA and CPTPP, but it was actually the member for Abbotsford who was the minister at the time and who negotiated that way.

Minister, I'll let you comment, if you want, on the cost of production, but I wanted to make sure those two points were on the record for my honourable colleagues.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Well, I think you have said it all. I don't have much to add. You have provided quite an accurate summary of the situation.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Those were the two points I wanted to make sure were on the record.

I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Louis.

Thanks so much.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here. I appreciate this and all the hard work you've done through this pandemic. It's wonderful to have you here and to be able to ask these questions.

I know you see that we're getting the same questions over and over from our panel. We get quite a bit of co-operation between parties, which I'm very proud of. We're all asking the same questions. We're all looking out for our agriculture sector. I hope you're getting the same kind of co-operation with the provinces and territories, because we're all working on the same ideas.

I just wanted to expand on.... You talked about compensation. Originally it was an eight-year horizon, and now we've condensed that support over four years. Can you just explain to our committee here why that decision came to be and how that can help with predictability?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

You will remember that during the summer of 2019 we had announced $1.75 billion for dairy farmers, with the first payment of $345 million. Because of COVID, they didn't have the time to.... We had to put all our resources around emergency programs. We realized that it would take us a bit more time to conclude the amount related to the new CUSMA.

This is why we have made this decision of shortening the delay of paying out for the first two agreements, to give predictability to the farmers, because we understood that it was something very important to them. They understand and they are reassured now. If it takes a bit longer to finalize the discussions around CUSMA, it's still reasonable for them, because they already know in advance what they will receive in terms of compensation for the next three years.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

In regard to talking to some of the farmers in my region here, can you explain which of the sectors would be receiving the compensation as far as monetary goes, and which sectors are getting more of investment-based...? With that compensation money—I believe you mentioned it before, but it probably bears repeating—are there any conditions on what they can use that compensation for, those sectors that are getting monetary compensation?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

For the dairy farmers, it's a direct transfer. They can use the money the way they want. It will be distributed to them through the Canadian Dairy Commission, the same way it was done last year. Because they know the process, and the commission is more experienced now, it should be even easier to proceed with this direct payment.

For the poultry and egg producers, they are asking for investment programs and support for market development. We need to have further discussions with them, because these discussions were done a while ago. This is why we're going to meet with them again next week.

Our intention is to roll out these programs as soon as possible. It will be.... I don't have the details yet. It's a work in process, but normally when we talk about investment programs, it's a cost sharing when they make investments to improve their productivity or their capacity.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Perfect.

I appreciate your taking the time here and taking the time to listen to feedback from the farmers themselves who can benefit from this.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Louis.

Thank you, Madam Minister.

It is always a pleasure to receive you and the information you convey, and to have you consult the committee about the different programs. I hope to see you again next year. In the meantime, we wish you happy holidays and thank you for everything.

We'll suspend the meeting and get back to Zoom for the other part of the meeting as quickly as possible, because we want to finish as soon as possible. We're going to spend half an hour planning committee business.

The meeting is suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]